Happy Birthday, Bill Nye! Everyone's Favorite Science Guy Turns 58

Bill Nye, everyone's favorite "Science Guy," turns 58 Wednesday. The former host of the iconic science education show that shares his nickname, Nye has remained in the spotlight as a result of his forceful and always colorful opinions on the importance of science literacy and hot-button issues such as climate change and evolution.

William Sanford Nye was born on Nov. 27, 1955. As a teen, he attended Washington, D.C.'s Sidwell Friends School before earning a degree in mechanical engineering from Cornell University. He first endeared himself to millions of children -- and their parents -- with his educational television program, "Bill Nye the Science Guy," which aired on PBS and local stations between 1993 and 1998.

Just last year, Nye garnered national headlines for his outspoken defense of evolution and scorn for the concept of creationism. In an exclusive interview with The Huffington Post last August, Nye said "creationism cannot predict anything, and it cannot provide satisfactory answers about the past ... Teaching creationism in science class as an alternative to evolution is inappropriate."

"This textbook business is, to my way of thinking, a very serious matter, because of the economic impact," Nye told The Huffington Post in email in November. "Everyone should take a moment and think what it will mean to raise a generation of students who might believe that it is reasonable to think for a moment that the Earth might be 10,000 years old."

Perelman, born 1966, is a Russian mathematician. He is best known among mathematicians for solving the Poincaré conjecture, a famous problem in the field of topology, nearly 100 years after it was first posed. Among the general public, he is best known for rejecting the prestigious Fields Medal in 2004, and the $1,000,000 Millennium Prize in 2010. "I'm not interested in money or fame," <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8585407.stm" target="_hplink">he is quoted to have said</a>. "I don't want to be on display like an animal in a zoo."